A visit to a country fair.

It’s Fall everyone, and you all know what that means, it’s Fair time. Carmel corn, farm animals, gardening and home crafts, and rides, lots of rides. I don’t do the rides though. I was never really into rides when little either.

The drive to the fair grounds was so pretty, lots of farms everywhere and little towns. I love seeing all the farm animals out and so many trees everywhere. Remember I was raised around cacti, I’m all Arizona at heart. I was transplanted to the Ozarks. What an adventure my life has been. I love everything I have seen in my life so far. It truly is beautiful everywhere out there.

Another truck window view of the road trip.

This time, instead of just visiting a fair, I decided to participate, so I entered a few pieces of mine which included that little scarecrow I made…remember that scarecrow? Everything was made by hand. With some old burlap, I designed and made a little hat and used decoupage to stiffen it. I needle felted a black crow and also made a tiny hat for it. The challenge I gave myself was to only use second hand supplies, or what I had on hand at home already, like button eyes and fabric scraps. The stuffing was from an old pillow and the wood base was from the old 1930’s furniture shop we are renovating.

A little scarecrow made from a pair of old overalls.

The day we went to see all the exhibits I was happily surprised to see my little scarecrow won the grand champion prize, it was chosen as best of show. I drew out the pattern to design a full page later to add to online PDF patterns for the shop. It’s so easy to make this scarecrow once you get to sewing it up. I like hand sewing because you can take your projects anywhere with you.

My favorite part of the county fairs are always the animals. They are so cute. The 4-H kids take really good care of them. The kids are always so happy to win a ribbon. You should see the big smiles on their faces. The fair separates exhibits and events into adult or child categories.

I remember going to a farm festival in Italy years ago when visiting my husband’s family and it reminded me a little of the state fairs in my country. I don’t remember the Italian festivals having contest though. Maybe they did and I just couldn’t understand the language so I mostly just watched and discovered what another country was like. That’s a good memory.

Not the fair, but another event this Fall we went to on the way to the fair.

I remember at the Italian festivals they would have tractors too, and baby chicks that they gave to the children. There area where I live now reminds me so much of old Europe. I haven’t been in awhile, years in fact. The last trip my husband and I took was when we took our daughter to meet her family over there, usually they are the ones to visit us here in the states.

This goat was so funny, it kept looking at the sheep show that was going on in the stadium. It had a lot of character.

The 4-H kids were all showing their sheep the day we visited the fair. There were goats there too, but we missed that show. And we missed the cattle show too. I really wanted to see the sheep the most though, so at least I got that.

There was also a quilt section. This is another favorite section of mine to visit. Every time I see all the beautiful quilts it reminds me of how many talented people there are out there . One of the quilts at the fair we noticed was the quilt we voted on as our favorite at another quilt show we went to earlier that month. It won a blue ribbon at the fair.

All the quilts were beautiful. I can’t imagine being a judge for that, it would be hard to do because every quilt is a work of art to me.

Here are some other items that won that I really liked.

A large basket full of colorful peppers.

This painting was in the adult fine art section. In person the colors on this mushroom just pop out at you. They did a great job.

Someone cross stitched all our presidents. The detail in this was amazing.

This was a pretty big barn and it had great detail to it. It deserved best of show. It even had little Christmas lights all around it.

The canned items all had little bitty miniature ribbons on them. I thought that was so cute.

They also had a pumpkin decorating contest.

I didn’t see any ribbons on this and this sea turtle was also huge. I really liked this. I wonder if it was paper mache.

I can’t believe how big these watermelons are.

There were a lot of flowers on display. Flowers are very popular here and everyone grows them. That’s good for the bees.

There was a nice variety of large scarecrows for the large scarecrow contest.

In the large scarecrow category this scarecrow won grand champion which includes a cash prize as well as the purple ribbon and medallion, just like the miniature scarecrows.

I didn’t see any scary Jack a Lanterns at the fair, all the decorated pumpkins for that contest were all cute or silly looking like this little pick with lipstick.

The gardener’s club was giving out free seeds. I picked a package of green beans and my husband picked peppers.

There was also a country store in the back of the exhibit. I have never seen anything like this in Arizona fairs. The women running it were so sweet. They had a section where one lady had baked all kinds of banana sweet treats that she was selling. There was even a garden section where they were selling little clippings and baby succulents for .25 cents each. Old country magazines were ,25 cents each and there was a huge selection of old books to purchase as well, around .50 cents to $1. The children headed to the back area to look through the toy selection to buy a toy. All the money made from the store helps to give scholarships to the 4-H teens.

My daughter entered some items at the fair too. She entered all kinds of her baked items and won all blue ribbons, we were so proud. We already know how yummy her cooking is, as she will share some of the things she makes with us. She has a whole book of her recipes she has been working on for years and this year she thought it would be fun to enter the event as well.

At the end of the fair you get a check for all the ribbons you have won. The higher the ribbon the more money you get. There is also a point system for 4-H and pageants. I’m not really sure how the point system works, I just know that the higher the ribbon the higher the points of course. It’s just a fun event to not only participate in but see so many beautiful hand made items others come up with. I mostly like seeing that, so many creative people out there.

Here are some other items I entered which you may have already seen if you are one of my followers. I always encourage others to go out there in the world and participate in life, in events, and make things with your own hands.